Dead cop killer's testimony read to Burge jury

In 1989 lawsuit, Andrew Wilson said he was beaten, suffocated and shocked into confessing to two police officers' murders

June 07, 2010|By Matthew Walberg | Tribune staff reporter

Jon Burge walks in the Loop after court. He is accused of lying about his participation in and knowledge of the torture of suspects. (Lane Christiansen, Chicago Tribune)

The words of deceased cop killer Andrew Wilson were heard Monday by a federal jury that will decide whether retired Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge lied about the alleged abuse of dozens of suspects.

Wilson's testimony from his 1989 lawsuit against Burge was read in court by a young, clean-cut FBI agent, while photos of Wilson — his face covered in bandages, his chest and thighs seared with burns from a radiator, and tiny marks on his nose and ears from where wires were connected to electro-shock him — appeared on large video screens in U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow's courtroom.

Wilson died in 2007 after spending nearly three decades in prison for the February 1982 murders of Chicago police Officers William Fahey and Richard O'Brien.

Burge is on trial for perjury and obstruction of justice for allegedly lying in a 2003 lawsuit by another alleged victim when he denied any use or knowledge of torture.

Wilson said he was beaten and kicked by half a dozen detectives. Then Burge came to speak to him.

"He told me I was going to make a statement," Wilson testified in the 1989 civil trial. "He said his reputation was at stake."

A short time later, Wilson testified, Detective John Yucaitis entered with a black box that had a crank on one side and attached wires to Wilson's nose and ears.

"It shocks you. It makes your teeth grind," Wilson testified. "I hollered and kneed him, kicked him ... between the legs. He punched me in the mouth, (and) he cranked it again. I hollered, and he stopped."

After Wilson refused to give a statement to an assistant state's attorney, he was taken back to the interrogation room.

"Burge came in and said, 'Fun time,'" Wilson testified. With that, he and another detective shocked him repeatedly and pressed him against a hot radiator. Burge later brought out a second device that looked like a curling iron but had a wire sticking out of it, he said.

"He jabbed that in my back, and you got the full jolt," Wilson testified. "He stopped because I was spitting blood."

Wilson testified that he eventually confessed to the murders after Burge told him he would be tortured again if he did not make a statement.